The Health Spending Decline

Why costs have been slowing, at least until ObamaCare kicks in.

Updated May 12, 2013 6:32 p.m. ET

To the surprise of both political parties and planners of all types, American health-care spending appears to be slowing down. The health growth rate has flattened out at about 3.9% over the last three years—a record low since the 1960s and down from the old normal of 6.2% to 9.7% in the 2000s.

This is rare good economic news, given that health cost growth sends federal entitlement spending soaring and erodes middle-class wage...